Ronasé Réal

I have moved on. I can jump once again but not at the command of someone else but through my own efforts. I have moved on. I have moved to another stage. I have moved on with my life.

But the way leading to this is not an easy journey. I have imposed to myself the difficulty of not minding you: I kept in my mind not the things that would place you in bad light but the things that would preserve my respect for your person and it worked for me… it made the healing so fast. The difficulty of staying away from the places where there is no chance of contact: I left my heart in these places and self-respect demands that I gather them back by my self… this exercise proved painful yet bearable because of the hope of healing.

I regained my self worth which inevitably damaged by unrequited compassion. I now have the courage to face you not as a person lesser than an admirer but a believer of good will that reigns in the heart of men.

When You're Gone - Avril Lavigne

Never was I given a chance to tell how my days were occupied of thoughts of you. Never was I given a chance to gaze at your face affectionately. Not a single chance did I enjoy to say words of familiarity to someone who is enigmatic. "Last chance" you always endorse but never was I given.

But never this chance will be wasted to express the great void of losing you which I impose to myself because of unrequited compassion.

I have to let go not because I have proven myself wrong of things of you dear to me but because I do not want to cause you the harm to inflict on me the hurt by saying no.

All I want you to know that this compassion I feel merited not pain and disillusionment but only the feeling of loneliness of you not being part of me which I tried my best to be worthy for you.

Let this song narrate the difficulty I am in. From here on, you will never see me jump.

When You're Gone

 Avril Lavigne

I always needed time on my own

I never thought I'd need you there when I cry

And the days feel like years when I'm alone

And the bed where you lie

Is made up on your side

When you walk away

I count the steps that you take

Do you see how much I need you right now?

When you're gone

The pieces of my heart are missing you

When you're gone

The face I came to know is missing too

When you're gone

The words I need to hear to always get me through the day

And make it OK

I miss you

I never felt this way before

Everything that I do

Reminds me of you

And the clothes you left

They lie on the floor

And they smell just like you

I love the things that you do

When you walk away

I count the steps that you take

Do you see how much I need you right now?

When you're gone

The pieces of my heart are missing you

When you're gone

The face I came to know is missing too

When you're gone

The words I need to hear to always get me through the day

And make it OK

I miss you

We were made for each other

Out here forever

I know we were

Yeah Yeah

All I ever wanted was for you to know

Everything I do I give my heart and soul

I can hardly breathe I need to feel you here with me

Yeah

When you're gone

The pieces of my heart are missing you

When you're gone

The face I came to know is missing too

And when you're gone

The words I need to hear will always get me through the day

And make it OK

I miss you

As I write this letter I am struggling to brand what I exactly feel and label what I really want from all these sudden actions coming from me. Not as a means for justification but I myself is shocked by the great deal I give in pursuing my message to be conveyed. I am as well determined despite doubts and worries of rejection and broken relations.

I like you, perhaps. No, I am into you. I could be mistaken with what I feel for you right now but I’d rather be mistaken than let this chance fly from me. This chance is more than looking at things with romance. I’d rather look for the truth… in me and in you. The truth in me is my own business as with the truth in you yours. I hope you do not think I am imposing the “truth” on you for that would be the last thing I would ever do. But human beings as we are, we cannot help but prejudge and influence the world to be in conjunction with what we want. Again, here I would rather be mistaken than to be proven idle amidst the undeniable realities surrounding me. More so, I invite the truth or if not, the reality to all of these to give me light. I just want to know more for I have come to realize that this feeling is valid. The light I ask for will definitely give contours to the shadow I leave behind.

I am disposed to know you… the real you… if you will only permit. Here, I would not want to be mistaken for I have experienced in the past hoping for things to come my way. I have been guilty of attaching meaning to the actions, words, goodness and even the person’s gestures of affection and of ordinary activities and circumvent it to favor my whims. In the end, I become more superficial detached from the world of happiness wherein pain and struggle are at its firmament.

I would be on top of the world if permitted to concur and at a certain extent deny the traits and character both good and bad that I have unilaterally known about you. With the desire to know, to feel and to act on this reality that I invite you to participate. But what is it to you?

True enough; an invitation also solicits a “no” for an answer but a “no” is preferred over and above silence. Silence to this matter suggests only immaturity and self-centeredness to the silent while inflicts violation and irreverence to the silenced.

Sincere I am. And so asked is sincerity in return for this real and breathing desire in me to know and appreciate you even more.

Thinking through I would like to make things simple and straightforward. You have many friends I got mine but we do not know the quality of friendship we entertain and friends we gather. Being friends with you seems to be far-fetched. I got a few and I want it to remain that way and I suppose you need not to include me. I am not quite sure whether you are committed with somebody or hoping for another. Equally important are your commitment and irresponsibility for they are most compelling reasons to push me away.

Again, what is it for you?

We dig yet found nothing significant underlying. We continue digging because we do not want to be frustrated. We are courageous enough to say that we are proud for not giving up of the impression we had. And so deeper this time we dig. But have found nothing more than dirt underground this open lot available to all.

Yes, it rained. It rained hard. Flood rose from the soil and washed away what covers the land: flowers and Bermuda grass and top soil.

What is now found underneath a carpet of beauty and refinement are not even life forms creeping but filth.

Once again, the sun mightily shines. Vaporizing the waters of the land and drying up the floods, under it, life promises to flourish one more time.

Yet nothing could be found now on the open field of filth for it is now hardened by the heat. For rain, which is a natural force placed those of us who were interested in the beauty and refinement of the field away its scope. We have found other pastures for us not to dig but to till.

To till and not to dig this time now. For we have found underneath a guarded and secured lot both health and wealth of which we relentlessly sought in taking interest in you but discovered nothing only curse.

To end this madness, I defer to the contemplative mind of the Pope to give me light in the pursuit of happiness, more so of purpose. Below is an excerpt of the Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's July 24 question-and-answer session with priests from the dioceses of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso, Italy, during the Pope's vacation.

* * *

MEETING OF THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI WITH THE CLERGY OF THE DIOCESES OF BELLUNO-FELTRE AND TREVISO

Church of St Justin Martyr, Auronzo di Cadore
Tuesday, 24 July 2007

Fr. Alberto: Holy Father, young people are our future and our hope: but they sometimes see life as a difficulty rather than an opportunity; not as a gift for themselves and for others but as something to be consumed on the spot; not as a future to be built but as aimless wandering. The contemporary mindset demands that young people be happy and perfect all of the time. The result is that every tiny failure and the least difficulty are no longer seen as causes for growth but as a defeat. All this often leads to irreversible acts such as suicide, which wound the hearts of those who love them and of society as a whole. What can you tell us educators who feel all too often that our hands are tied and that we have no answers? Thank you.

Benedict XVI: I think you have just given us a precise description of a life in which God does not figure. At first sight, it seems as if we do not need God or indeed, that without God we would be freer and the world would be grander. But after a certain time, we see in our young people what happens when God disappears.

As Nietzsche said: "The great light has been extinguished, the sun has been put out". Life is then a chance event. It becomes a thing that I must seek to do the best I can with and use life as though it were a thing that serves my own immediate, tangible and achievable happiness. But the big problem is that were God not to exist and were he not also the Creator of my life, life would actually be a mere cog in evolution, nothing more; it would have no meaning in itself. Instead, I must seek to give meaning to this component of being.

Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God. This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favor of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man?

I believe this is of the utmost importance. This is what I wanted to say in my lecture at Regensburg: that reason should be more open, that it should indeed perceive these facts but also realize that they are not enough to explain all of reality. They are insufficient. Our reason is broader and can also see that our reason is not basically something irrational, a product of irrationality, but that reason, creative reason, precedes everything and we are truly the reflection of creative reason.

We were thought of and desired; thus, there is an idea that preceded me, a feeling that preceded me, that I must discover, that I must follow, because it will at last give meaning to my life. This seems to me to be the first point: to discover that my being is truly reasonable, it was thought of, it has meaning. And my important mission is to discover this meaning, to live it and thereby contribute a new element to the great cosmic harmony conceived of by the Creator.

If this is true, then difficulties also become moments of growth, of the process and progress of my very being, which has meaning from conception until the very last moment of life. We can get to know this reality of meaning that precedes all of us, we can also rediscover the meaning of pain and suffering; there is of course one form of suffering that we must avoid and must distance from the world: all the pointless suffering caused by dictatorships and erroneous systems, by hatred and by violence.

However, in suffering there is also a profound meaning, and only if we can give meaning to pain and suffering can our life mature. I would say, above all, that there can be no love without suffering, because love always implies renouncement of myself, letting myself go and accepting the other in his otherness; it implies a gift of myself and therefore, emerging from myself. All this is pain and suffering, but precisely in this suffering caused by the losing of myself for the sake of the other, for the loved one and hence, for God, I become great and my life finds love, and in love finds its meaning.

The inseparability of love and suffering, of love and God, are elements that must enter into the modern conscience to help us live. In this regard, I would say that it is important to help the young discover God, to help them discover the true love that precisely in renunciation becomes great and so also enables them to discover the inner benefit of suffering, which makes me freer and greater. Of course, to help young people find these elements, companionship and guidance are always essential, whether through the parish, Catholic Action or a Movement. It is only in the company of others that we can also reveal this great dimension of our being to the new generations.

Let us face it: can we hold on to peace and happiness at the same time? Can we be peaceful with immense happiness? Or is it only in eternal bliss this fusion of two great longings of man could ever coexist?

Many of us center our life in the pursuit of happiness. Happiness is said to be the ultimate goal of man’s existence. Religion would dictate that absolute Happiness is found not in this world but in the realm hereafter. Philosophical schools have inquired and probed into how man in his lifetime could ever satisfy this longing to be happy and their inquiry resulted in many forms and many ways for all mankind and for all times. Probers award the origins and essence of happiness to man himself, others to destiny, others to fate, others to predestination while others negate happiness itself: as illusory. 

Happiness is very relative. One person has a different degree of appreciation compared to the other individual. In economics, “utility” is the quantifiable to measure happiness. Laws in economics govern how to maximize the satisfaction (appetite) of consumers given a product and its quantity or frequency of consumption. Commerce and finance altogether with advertising and promotions capitalize in the human affection to be happy. Happiness in this consideration cannot be independent. On the other hand, happiness depends on how a client/customer can pay to avail of the various “brands”, “models”, “types” and “shades” of this commodity: happiness™.

But there is one shade/type/model/brand of happiness that religion, philosophy, economics, commerce, finance, advertising and promotions cannot brand, model, stereotype, and hide. And this is to the religious, the philosopher, the economist, the entrepreneur, and the creative undeniable. Most of the times this longing for “happiness” makes the professional and ideological stances of man shattered. For in facing the quality and truth of such, one is helpless because such is very personal.

More than the issue raised above on the relativism of happiness, happiness is far from absolutism at least here on earth thanks to monotheism. Arguing that happiness as a fleeting human affection can be sufficed by many forms and many ways, man will never rest until man has found the answers, better yet affirmations for his desires.

Given this immature search for happiness that fulfills, can one be at peace if one is to all the time respond to the “stimuli to be happy”?

Indeed, affirmation more than answers (equivalence) to his pursuit shall give man peace.

 Don't rely on someone else for your happiness and self worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can't love and respect yourself - no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are - completely; the good and the bad - and make changes as YOU see fit - not because you think someone else wants you to be different.

-Sourced from an ‘observed’ cheerful individual

Some of us are just too cheerful. Observe that these individuals are enjoyable to be with. They are celebrated. They are always with friends and with people who laugh and with people who need inspiration or reason or extra-ability to make something pleasant in their capacities. In other words, the gift of cheerfulness infects. Many of us would say that this kind of people hide whatever that needs to hidden. They are those serious and those who have issues that only by their courageous exploits could they be ever resolve such. Nonetheless, these people are truly fun to be with. At times we even envy them. Others would feel off because they are too open and accommodating. At times, their sincerity is doubted. Others would see them as superficial.

But still, they bother us or they affect us in one way or the other.

I am bothered. I am affected.

I contemplate: am I sad? Or am I as well in the same terrain battling for the same happiness that these cheerful people want in life.

I ask (I hope not in rhetoric): are you sad?

In a previous blog entry I have written the points I got from watching a series on the great ideas in Philosophy. The series of lectures were delivered competently by a philosopher-psychologist teaching in Oxford and previously in Georgetown. One of the topics centered on Happiness and the Pursuit of a Good Life. What caught my attention was the formula of the Hedonist School in achieving Happiness beyond what usually attributed to it such as pleasure and comfort.

Under the facility of the lecturer, he mentioned about the authentic doctrines so to speak of Hedonism upon which the School is credibly considered as one source in the pursuit of man for a good life or in general, Happiness. In the same lecture, he mentioned about the philosophical teachings of Socrates (on the examined life), Aristotle (on the active life) and the teachings and examples of heroes and saints.

While the lecturer debunked the common mistakes of many men on Hedonism as an evil philosophical front, I have learned and I was interested to delve on these doctrines in my personal justification to pursue what will make me happy mainly sourced from the bodily senses. This does not mean that because Hedonism was placed in such esteem, I will use it mainly to gratify my bodily wants and neglect about happiness which could be endangered by mere concentrating on the biological needs or even wants of man. As it was postulated, Hedonism is all about the pursuit of Happiness more than a good life – a life of comfort and of pleasures and of skin-deep friendships.

In the pursuit of Happiness, a life must be a life full of hope. Beyond seeking comfort, one must aspire for peace both internal and external peace. And this can only be carried out by a life that is hoping for goodness to triumph over evil. A life that is full of hope allows the person to defend peace possessed even around a hopeless situation or in a hopeless environment. This therefore means that the Hedonist must always be at war to defend his peace. He is not to sleep all day and remain in stagnancy while the world around him is in a mess. What I am trying to convey is simple, a Hedonist must be proactive all the time.

In the pursuit of Happiness, a life must be a life of faith. More than to gratify the self from pleasures, the challenge is for man to strongly hold on to something that is permanent and sustainable. Pleasures are nothing but excitement entertained by the senses. We also know that the excess of pleasures could also be unhealthy for anything not in moderation is not best. A Hedonist is therefore summoned to lead a life of faith. Faith allows man to believe even in what the senses and human faculties cannot logically or reasonably fathom. Luckily, faith could be revealed not only through dogmas but also via material manifestations. These manifestations or signs are identified by man only through his senses and his faculties. These are the same senses upon which pleasures are enjoyed and which pain are suffered.

In the pursuit of happiness, a life must be a life of love. Beyond the establishment of friendship (and most of the case is limited to numbers, types and personalities) the call for man is to establish strong foundations (on fertile ground) of relationships around love. Contrary to a friendship that catapults one to fame and self-centeredness, relationships around love defy what numbers, types and personalities would dictate allowing the friendship of all (self-giving), platonic friendship and the friendship of the inanimate or the ideal possible. The Hedonist therefore has to go out of himself and change (recreate) the world all because of love. The change or reformation is consequential resulting from love. For love transforms and love identifies. For love does not preserve and exclude.

Contrary to a good life, a life that is good ponders on how is goodness relevant to the pursuit of happiness which is the ultimate good for man. While a good life ponders on how happiness is relevant to present life, a life that is good stretches to touch the life hereafter.

It is up to us what to pursue. A life that is good or a good life. I must say that a life that is good is more challenging and it requires enormous commitment.

The good life: not necessarily a "morally righteous" life

I have met a special person two or three weeks ago: I am not sure. All I know that was a Friday in one of the most unholy places man could ever be. Nonetheless, the meeting was exciting and it started a new shift of my perspective on the topics of happiness, of peace, of a good life and of intimacy and exclusivity.

The succeeding blog entries I dedicate to this person. Now let me expound on these topics or better yet let me document my thoughts.

P.S. Why is it in blogs what you immediately get is the latest write-up? It only serves those who write because they have to report and not to document. This is the very reason why history begins where it all started. Anyways, read along.

Contrary to common understanding Hedonism which for the majority is a philosophical platform pushing for the satisfaction of the bodily favors of man this age old philosophical school offers to the modern man a ‘fresh’ perspective to possess happiness in one’s lifetime. As against to the popular notion that the school is mainly advancing the satisfaction of the baseness of his being, Man in the “view” of “Hedonists” should in full wisdom avail of all worldly sources of gratification.

However, in missing the authentic experience of pursuing what satisfies man in the context of avoiding suffering and or achieving happiness, the very essence of the philosophical beauty of Hedonism is lost. Thus, in the pursuit of man’s fullness of existence which is Happiness, man, as a being, has been deprived of one pathway towards achieving this purpose because of such wrong notion.

In the abuse or perhaps because of the ignorance about the philosophical life that breathes into this school, we have now a perverted perspective of satisfying what urges man to be fully happy while on earth. Because of this, man, on the other hand is in doubt of his ability to succumb to the meditation that is equal to a philosophical realization on him acting on what pleases him and what pleases the other or equally can be expressed on what will lessen or totally diminish the suffering that life inevitably brings to man himself.

A true Hedonist, faithful to the school of thought is a person, who in acknowledging that living is also with suffering and realizing that the end of life is happiness pursues happiness thru and through a good life.

The good life is what consumes the Hedonist. A life of gratification (sensual and immaterial pleasures) and of comfort where in every entry of gratification thru man’s senses could permeate and in every possible chance could a soul rest from attending his business on earth. But a life whose quality is absolutely consistent with the above is premature.

Depriving not the reality that others exist, of man in the web of life and the interconnectedness of things in the universe the Hedonist believes that in the pursuit of happiness the other should be taken into account. Otherwise, Hedonism shall be defiance to itself. How can happiness be ever present in an environment where others are in serious strife or in pain due to inequality (greed) and or in poverty (corruption)?

Now we are led on how man should live a good life according to the precepts of Hedonism. In this world full of suffering to which is accepted by the Hedonist should be countered by a life that is consistent with happiness or with what can make man happy. But this is not common to all. A set of dos and don’ts on what can make man happy cannot be prescribed by Hedonism. Only it can preach about a life that is good.

But what constitutes a life that is good? This now is a more fundamental question the school of Hedonism poses to itself. What constitutes a life that is good?